Hello In Different Languages

Hello in Different Languages

The goal of this activity is to heighten cross-cultural awareness,
celebrate cross-cultural knowledge, and to say "hello" in many
different languages.

This can be used a fun, warm-up, get-to-know-you activity with a
cross-cultural theme.

Within a group, you may be surprised how much knowledge there is of
different languages for basic phrases.

Optional: Ask participants to see if they can guess how many people
there are in the world and how many different languages are spoken.
(There are ~2800 languages and ~6 billion people. If an equal number of
people spoke each language, that would be ~2 million people per
language. You might relate this to local city/town size.).

Challenge the group to come up with as many different languages for
"hello" as possible. When somebody volunteers (e.g., Bonjour!),
make sure they say it or repeat it clearly for the rest of the group who
then repeat.

Optional: Before people start making suggestions, ask the group to have
a guess how many collective languages the group will be able to
come up with. Don't allow discussion - just do a quick whip around
each person's guess and take a rough average - that's the group's
estimate.

The group leader keeps count on his/her fingers.

Was the final number of "hellos in different languages" close to the
group's guess? If the group underestimated, they may not realize
the knowledge within the group that might be used to their advantage.
If the group's guess was an overestimate, why did they overestimate
their knowledge resources? Discuss.

Optional - to make more difficult or to add variation, try asking for
these basic phrases:

Hello...Goodbye

Hello, My name is...?

Hello, How are you?

Yes...No

Please...Thankyou

Do you speak English?

Numbers 1-5 or 1-10

Optional, but recommended - have a list of hello in lots of different
languages from which you can read out (see Jennifer's Language Page).
This is especially useful for groups who don't know many different
languages, as well as to learn, have fun, and illustrate the range of
different languages.